Waldmire subject of film

Friday

Oct 12, 2012 at 11:03 AMOct 12, 2012 at 11:09 AM

Luke Smucker

Experienced documentarian Mark Silverstein and director of photography Rick Diamond huddled around a Cannon 5D Mark III Digital SLR camera which was perched on a few feet of camera track in front of the Bob Waldmire converted school bus behind the Route 66 Hall of Fame and Museum Thursday afternoon. Their small group, which includes cinematographer Matt Diamond, is working on a documentary about the famed Route 66 artist and traveler. “We are shooting at 24 frames per second,” said Silverstein while looking through the camera’s viewfinder, which was perched slightly above the camera body. “We are shooting it as if we were shooting an actual motion picture. This frame speed gives our video a more cinematic look instead of a video look. It’s amazing how technology has changed; 30 years ago, we would have been shooting this on 35mm film.”Silverstein, who teaches journalism and filmmaking at Douglas High School in Douglas, Ariz. said the documentary originally started as a class project, but was eventually shelved for an extended period of time before it was picked up six or eight months ago by the trio who decided they were going to make it into a documentary.“We chose Waldmire because I live about 15 minutes away from where he used to live in Arizona and I got interested in his story,” said Silverstein. “Through a series of circumstances my wife and I kept going out to his land and ended up owning his small Shasta trailer; we just kept building on the story. Rick and I decided we were going to produce the documentary and just see where it takes us.”Nearly two dozen members of Waldmire’s family came to Pontiac to see the dedication of the Waldmire bus during the 2011 Red Carpet Corridor Festival. Waldmire designed hundreds of postcards depicting scenes of the entire stretch of the “Mother Road.” The converted school bus, as well as the smaller VW bus, located with the Route 66 museum, were entrusted to the Illinois Route 66 Association of Illinois and the city by Waldmire family members.Silverstein had been in Illinois for three days as of Thursday, scouting, pre-interviewing and working on logistics for the documentary. Rick Diamond got to Pontiac Wednesday night from Baltimore, Md., and Matt Diamond came the same night from Los Angeles, Calif. The trio planned to continue their work at the Log Cabin Restaurant late Thursday before heading to Rochester and Springfield and finally to their respective homes Sunday. Both Rick Diamond and Silverstein plan to come back to Pontiac at some point to shoot more footage.“I will start editing the footage right when I get back to Arizona,” said Silverstein. “My buddies are already looking at and transferring footage. Because I work as a teacher eight months out of the year and Rick works as a freelancer on the East Coast, it could take us two years before we’re posted. When it’s done though, the very first place it will go is to Route 66 Hall of Fame and Museum here in Pontiac as a donation. Then, hopefully there will be some DVDs to support the upkeep of the bus and the museum. We will try to market the film as well to the cable market, both here in the United States and internationally.”The film itself will be about people’s interactions with Waldmire, his life on Route 66 in the desert and Illinois, and his family. It won’t be shot from any one narrator’s perspective, just homage to Waldmire as a person. “I hope that people will see that first and foremost, Waldmire lived life the way he wanted to,” said Silverstein. “He made his choices — good or bad — and he stuck with them. I want people to know you can have any life that you want. I am a schoolteacher, but I always tell my students that you can have any life that you want. Waldmire had the life he desired and I am lucky enough to have the life that I desire.”Being able to live life as a person desires is a message that Silverstein believes has gotten lost on today’s youth. Silverstein said because he was lucky enough to always have worked in film or media since he was a pre-teen, he has always been able to live life by his own rules. “Now I get to share my joy and interest with other people and get the message across,” said Silverstein. “I think filmmaking is still somewhat of a rogue trade skill; not a traditional occupation. I don’t even think the job of a male teacher is a traditional occupation.”What Silverstein has learned during the filming process is that as a documentarian, he meets all kinds of people from all walks of life. Meeting people is a practice that keeps him grounded, open-minded and flexible. “I think it’s great and that is one of the reasons I love working on documentaries,” said Silverstein. “I’ve worked on documentaries in Mexico and other places, meeting people is the greatest thing.”